GHERLA OF THE ARMENIANS AND ROMANIANS. — It is the Romanian name of a Transylvanian town, called in Hungarian Szamosújvár and in German Armenierstadt, founded by Armenian immigrants in the 17th century near a 16th-century castle built by Cardinal Martinuzzi. In 1930 it had about 6,700 inhabitants. Gherla has a beautiful Armenian Catholic church, dedicated to the Most Holy Trinity, formerly a cathedral. Since 1930 it has been the official seat of the Apostolic Administrator of the Armenian Catholics of Romania. From the same date, by virtue of the Concordat with the Holy See, Gherla ceased to be the seat of the Bishop of Gherla-Cluj, a diocese founded in 1853 for Romanian-rite Byzantine Catholics.
Bibl.: O. G. Lecca, Dictionar istorico-archeologici si geografe al României, Bucharest 1937, p. 630. Federico Tailliez